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Hi, any of you guys using front squats in your workouts?

Just changed from Hip Belt squats to these a couple of workouts ago, I′ve been limited to what leg exercises I can use due to knee issues. I cannot squat regular style due to my knees and they don′t suit my structure at all, above a certain weight and they turn into good mornings.

Front Squats feel really natural and suprise suprise they don′t aggravate my knees despite what I′ve read about them in the past. They hit my quads much more than regular Squats which I find turn into a lower back ex. for me personally. All in all I find them to be an excellent exercise, far superior to back squats with one caveat, you cannot perform high reps with any decent ammount of resistance due to the bar placement, but they work well at lower reps and I imagine would be great if done rest-pause.

Cheers G.

GARETHIT1
Have you tried Deadlifts using a Trap bar and an elevated platform just wide enough to stand on to increase the lower range of the movement? Because of the ability to keep the weight centered it tends to take some pressure off the knees.
Bob

Hi Deadtrap,

I have a trap bar and was using it heavily when I first started having knee problems. I′ve tried to use it a few times since and it aggravates the hell out of my knees! The positive part of the rep is fine but the negative part of the rep causes a lot of grinding and pain in my knees even though I′m concious to follow the same path on the way down.

I never found it that good a quad ex. to be honest, whole body yes. If I tried performing them on an elevated platform my back would round at the bottom. I think the thing is that some exercises work for some people and some work better for others and the only way to find out is give them a try.
I′m 6ft 3in tall with long limbs which would make my choices of exercises different to someone shorter with better leverages for instance.

thnx.